ST. LOUIS — Tara Nealey had no desire to be a lawyer when she was an undergrad at Brown University.
“I looked at people who were doing different kinds of work and had this conception that you become your work, and I didn’t want to become a lawyer,” she said.
With a love of biology and lab experiments, Nealey became a scientist and researcher, earning a Ph.D. in neuroscience.
Now she is a shareholder at the Polsinelli law firm, specializing in intellectual property. She leads a team of attorneys, patent agents and scientists specializing in IP and the full range of life science technologies, from medical devices to pharmaceuticals to advanced biotechnology underpinning advances such as gene therapy.
She discussed how and why that career transformation happened — and her avocation as a beekeeper.
Why neuroscience? I knew I didn’t want to go to medical school, but I was very interested in biology. I decided to study physiology, which is broad, not very specific. It includes hands-on molecular biology, but also how macro systems work — heart, renal, nerve systems. One of the labs I rotated through was in neuroscience with a young faculty member, John Maunsell. I was his first graduate student, and my experience with him was amazing. I really lucked out. His wife, also a neuroscientist, was a great role model.
Why law? When I was in college, I didn’t want to be a lawyer and didn’t know you could merge science with any type of law. When my husband, also a neuroscientist, and I began to have a family, I knew that trying to find suitable faculty positions in the same city is notoriously difficult. My father-in-law was a patent lawyer for GE and told me of the growing need for biology and law.
You became a patent agent in St. Louis? Yes, the late John Beulick was instrumental in getting my foot in the door at Armstrong Teasdale as a novice, and he encouraged me to go to law school sooner rather than later if I was interested in becoming a lawyer. I was a patent agent by day and a law student by night.
Of the jobs you have held, do you have a favorite? My current job is a really good fit, though I miss conducting experiments. If I could go back to when I was a post-doc, that would be great, but not at this point in my life.
What would you advise someone considering a switch in careers? Be prepared to be humbled. Don’t take feedback from supervisors and mentors personally. Be open and don’t be defensive. You are probably coming from an area in which you are already accomplished, and you are older and less accustomed to being in the student role.
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